Household-Family In Eighteenth Century England

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The Concept of the Household-Family in Eighteenth-Century England

In Naomi Tadmor’s article, The Concept of the Household-Family in Eighteenth Century England, she discussed what a household family consisted of though the analization of five different books written in the eighteen century. Although she used all five, she concentrated on a personal diary of Thomas Turner, a mid-eighteenth century shopkeeper. Through his writings, she depicted what family life was like. She thought that his diary would be the best example because he speaks of his personal experience on a daily basis. The personal experiences of a real person are always better than those of a character in a novel because the situations are real, and therefore more reliable.
Throughout the article, Tadmor explains that the eighteenth century English family was characteristically nuclear, and non-complex. In the early modern period, it was uncharacteristic of an English family to be large and complex. English people often were referring to all types of dependants who lived in their household when they spoke of their families. These dependents usually consisted of spouses, children, servants, apprentices, and co-resident relatives. Tadmor notes that the author of the Dictionary published in 1755, Samuel Johnson, defined the term family as, “those who live in the same house.”
According to Tadmor, household’s dependents were diverse, and most members were not related in a consanguinal manner. She states that, “when people left households or joined them, as servants, apprentices, wards, or even as long-term guests, their actions were very often understood as familial actions.” Of course there were references to family as being related by blood or through marriage, but there was also a very common concept of family through relationships of authority, and co-residence. A household-family was considered to consist of people who live under the same r...